Biography
He began his art studies in his hometown, continued at the Lorenzo de Medici Academy in Florence (Italy) and then completed his training in the workshops of Pietrasanta (Italy), a place he has frequented for more than 20 years. The sculptural work of Gustavo Vélez has ventured into the Asian continent. In Japan, his name is already recognized among galleries in Tokyo, Utsunomiya, Iwaki and Yokohama. For two years, Vélez carried out the exhibition Incontro a Pietrasanta in galleries in Colombia and Japan. In 2008 he carried out an artistic exhibition on the occasion of the centenary of
bilateral relations between these two countries. His last exhibition in this country was in August 2015 at the Seiho Gallery in Tokyo. In recent years she has exhibited in renowned galleries and museums in China such as the Imperial City Museum in Beijing. She has also participated in fairs such as Art Shanghai (China), KIAF (Korea) and Art Stage (Singapore). In 2009 she made a monumental sculpture (Flying, Korean White Marble) that was located in the Art Valley Sculpture Park in Seoul (Korea). In Europe, Gustavo has participated in art fairs such as the Pinta in London, the Swab in Barcelona, Art Monaco, Art Madrid and Summa. In addition, he has a consolidated career as an artist present in Pietrasanta, an Italian city, the cradle of sculptors worldwide, a place where he learned the techniques of marble carving in 1996. In 2013, Vélez was chosen for the individual exhibition sculpture that takes place every year in this emblematic Italian city. The history of this event has artists such as Igor Mitoraj, Luciano Vanji, Novello Finotti, Gio Pomodoro, Fernando Botero, Kan Yasuda, among others. With this exhibition, Gustavo becomes the youngest artist to intervene in the emblematic Piazza del Duomo and the Chiesa di Sant`Agostino. The Gustavo Vélez Scultore a Pietrasanta 2013 show featured 34 bronze, steel and marble sculptures, between monumental and medium-sized, pieces up to 7 meters high and 8 tons in weight. In July 2015 he was chosen for the exhibition "Homo Faber" at the Parco della Versiliana (Pietrasanta, Italy) in which Vélez participated together with monumental works by Igor Mitoraj and Fernando Botero. The last solo show in Europe was held at the Museo Marino Marini in Pistoia, Italy (September - October 2015). In the American continent, in addition to his individual exhibitions in Panama and Colombia, he has participated in fairs and group shows in the United States, Mexico, Venezuela and Peru. During 2011 and 2012, more than 20 monumental marble, steel and bronze sculptures were exhibited in museums in Ecuador and Colombia: the Archaeological and Contemporary Museum of Guayaquil, the Museum of Modern Art of Cuenca, the Museum of Modern Art of Quito and the Museum of Art of the Tolima. Likewise, he was invited to the group show "How a Sculpture is born", at the Museum of Fine Arts in
Montgomery, Alabama (USA) where they exhibited the sketch of their work "Hypercubics", which is part of the collection of the Museo Dei Bozzetti in Pietrasanta, Italy. In Colombia, he held the exhibition "Gustavo Vélez Cartagena de Indias" that took place from December 18, 2015 to March 30, 2016. It is the largest exhibition of monumental sculpture that has been seen in the city, including 17 monumental sculptures , mostly made by the artist in Italy, and 30 medium-format works. The exhibition took part in the main squares of the Historic Center and museums such as the Museum of Modern Art of Cartagena, the Historical Museum and the Museum of Fortifications. His last solo show in his country was called "Three-dimensional Poetics" at the Duque Arango Gallery in Medellín. And now he is preparing a show for the Art of the World Gallery in Houston, Texas.
Comments
Dr. Domenico Lombardi, Mayor of Pietrasanta - Gustavo Vélez scultore a Pietrasanta 2013
"Sliding your gaze between one curve and the other, it can be easily noticed that Gustavo Vélez's sculptures are the reflection of his experience of more than twenty years in the artisan workshops and foundries of Pietrasanta. After his studies at El Instituto de Bellas Artes de Medellín and in Art History in Florence, the Colombian artist actually went on to learn sculptural techniques in Pietrasanta, snatching the best secrets from the local master craftsmen. His creativity and his dedication later to sculpture, over the course of the years, they did the rest. His great passion for slender forms led him to perfect himself in discovering the softness of marble, which sometimes marries natural stone, without neglecting the translation into work of his creations in bronze, of which takes particular care of the performance of the surface, which he loves to polish, in an almost reflective way. As well as the steel sculptures, to which he spends long hours, in order to actually be able to achieve the result of a mirror effect. Vélez's sculptures fascinate because of their expressive force not only given by the sinuous modulation of the forms, in a constant 'crystallized' movement upwards with a proud germination, but also striking due to their peculiarity of reflecting and reflecting. They reflect in fact who stops to admire them - starting with the artist who created it, but above all the world that surrounds it, and the infinite sky, which in this way are captured and made their own. In marble, on the other hand, the reflection becomes delicate and transparent, which blend well with the eventual veins of the stone. By: Gustavo Tatis Guerra, journalist and poet - Cartagena, Colombia - December 2015
The fine song of the stone An intimate dance ascends towards infinity in Gustavo Vélez's sculptures (Medellín, 1975). Their sinuous forms, light as music, challenge time and space, architecture and urban memory. There is something in common in the perplexity of the spectators in the cities of the world, in Europe, Asia and America, and it is the sleeping child who suddenly wakes up, to be reflected in the brilliance and splendor of his sculptures.
Gustavo Vélez has the virtue of turning the heaviness of marble, bronze and steel into a subtle and provocative lightness, as if it were the wing of a butterfly, the carnal lip suggested by the wind. In his hands, stones and metals become sensory symphony. His relationship with marble is the same as that of the masters in ancient times and in the Renaissance. With a hammer and chisel, as in the remote nights of Michelangelo and Bernini, the artist pauses before the elements and outlines before touching the stone the universe that he will fertilize with his hands. Only at the point of hammering and chiselling for days and nights, does the artist discover that marble and steel are not heavy, that heaviness and lightness are inside and outside of the creator, and the way to solve creation is the daughter of rigor. perfectionist and of the inexplicable and irrational enigma with which each work seems to whisper the closing of a circle and the intuitive demand that the artist not intervene in it anymore. These are the times that flow in the artist between two silences: from the moment that precedes the birth of his sculptures, to the other tremendous limit of culmination. In that pilgrimage he glimpses after an insatiable and relentless search, the miracle of a harmonic line, from which a curve, a spiral, a flight will emerge. As well as in the pictorial experience: seeing the sprouting of the blank canvas, of the blind overflowing light like that of the first dawn of the universe, the germ of a creature, of a gesture, of a tremor or a painted or sculpted emotion.
Exhibitions
2016
Duque Arango Gallery
Medellín, Colombia November 3, 2016 - February 28, 2017
Gustavo Vélez, Cartagena de Indias 2015 - 2016
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia December 19, 2015 - March 20, 2016
2015
Marino Marini Museum
Pistoia, Italy September 4 to October 10
2013
Gustavo Vélez Scultore to Pietrasanta
Piazza del Duomo and Chiesa di Sant Agostino October 5 to December 8 - Pietrasanta, Italy
2012
Memories of Pietrasanta", Promoarte Gallery
Tokyo, Japan - December
Luz Botero Fine Art at Trump Ocean Club
Panama City, Panama
Monumentalis in: Museum of Art of Tolima
Tolima, Colombia
2011
Monumentalis in: Museum of Contemporary Art of Quito
Quito, Ecuador
Monumentalis in: Anthropological and Contemporary Art Museum of Guayaquil
Guayaquil, Ecuador
Monumentalis in: Museum of Modern Art of Cuenca
Cuenca, Ecuador
2010
Zhengzhou Museum, Guan Xiang Art Gallery
Zhengzhou, China
2009
Rhythmics at: Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
Medellín, Colombia
Autumn at: Promoarte Gallery
Tokio, Japón
2008
Gustavo Vélez Exhibit at: Genkan Gallery
Tokio, Japón
2007
The exhibition of Gustavo VELEZ en: Gallery I
Iwaki, Japan July 7-15
2005
Gustavo Vélez Solo Exhibition at: Promo-Arte Gallery
Tokio, Japón
2003
Marble and Bronze in the Mayor's Office of Medellín
Medellín, Colombia
2002
Airport Olaya Herrera
Medellín, Colombia
2001
On the Move at: Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
Medellín, Colombia
Creations in: Chamber of Commerce of the Aburrá Sur
Medellín, Colombia
Creations in: Fredonia Open Air exhibition
Chamber of Commerce of Aburrá Sur Colombia, Fredonia (Antioquia) GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2016
Art Stage Singapore
LGM International Art, Singapore
Art Lima
LGM International Art, Lima, Peru
2015
Art Stage Singapore
LGM International Art, Singapore
Art Lima
LGM ARTE Internacional, Lima, Peru
Art Cartagena
LGM Arte Internacional, Cartagena, Colombia
Summa Madrid
LGM Arte Internacional – Madrid España
Kiaf Art Fair
Art of The World Gallery – Seúl, Corea
Homo Faber
Parque de la Versilia, Pietrasanta, Italia
International Sculpture Group 2015
Gallería Seiho, Tokio, Japón
How a Scultpure is born
Museo de Bellas Artes de Montgomery, Alabama, USA
Latin American Art Modern & Contemporary
Subasta de Arte Sothebys, Nueva York, USA
Latin American Art Modern & Contemporary
Subasta de Arte Phillips, Nueva York, USA
2014
Art Stage Singapore
LGM Arte Internacional 16 al 19 de enero - Singapur
ArtaMonaco
24 ale 27 de abril - Mónaco, Francia
Art Madrid
Ansorena Gallery, Madrid, Spain.
Subasta de Sothebys “Latin American Art Modern & Contemporary
29 de mayo - Nueva York, USA
2013
Promearte Gallery
21 de noviembre al 9 de diciembre - Tokio, Japón
Kiaf
Octubre 3 al 7, Seúl, Corea
Mura Museo
3 agosto - 1 septiembre, Pietrasanta, Italia
Scuderie del Palazzo Mediceo
26 julio - 1 septiembre - Seravezza, Italia
FIA, Feria de Arte Caracas, Venezuela. LGM Arte Internacional
27 de junio a 1 de julio - Venezuela
Bienal del Sur
15 de abril al 30 de mayo - Panamá
2012
Houston Fine Art Fair - Art From The World Gallery
Houston, USA
Beijing Art Museum of Imperial City
Beijing, China
Feria Internacional de Arte KIAF
Seúl, Corea
Feria de Arte PINTA - LGM Arte Internacional
Londres, Inglaterra
Feria de arte SWAB
Barcelona, España
Art Shanghai - LGM Arte Internacional
Shanghai, China
2011
Art Shanghai - LGM Arte Internacional
shanghái, China
Feria de Arte PINTA - LGM Arte Internacional
Londres, Inglaterra
Luz Botero Fine Art en Trump Ocean Club and Tower
Panama City, Panama
2010
Zhengzhou Museum, Guan Xiang Art Gallery
Zhengzhou, China
Galería I
Iwaki, Japón
Feria Internacional de Arte KIAF
Seúl, Corea
Art Shanghai -LGM
Shanghai, China
10th Latin American Contemporary Art en: Galería Promoarte
Tokio, Japón
2009
Art Shanghai - LGM Arte Internacional
Shanghai, China
Galería CANART
Shanghai, China
Artista en residencia, parque de esculturas Art Valley, Multinacional Crown
Seúl, Corea
The 17th Seoul International Art Festival
Seúl, Corea
Digital Culture & Contemporary Sculpture, en: Sait Gallery
Seúl, Corea
JK Sculpture Exhibition, en: Galería Silk
Seúl, Corea
2008
Colombia x Japan Today, en: Galería I
Iwaki, Japón
Artbo, Feria Internacional de Arte
Bogotá, Colombia
Incontro a Pietrasanta IV, en: Casa de la Cultura de Sabaneta
Colombia, Sabaneta (Antioquia)
Colombia x Japan Contemporary Art Today, en: Galería Promoarte
Tokio, Japón
Incontro a Pietrasanta III, en: Galería Ciel
Utsunomiya, Japón
Incontro a Pietrasanta IV, en: Galería MUNDO
Bogota, Colombia
2007
Incontro a Pietrasanta II, en: Museo de Arte del Tolima
Ibagué, Colombia
Incontro a Pietrasanta II, en: Galería Duque Arango
Medellín,
Links of interest
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